Joseph Socki

This course surveys the history of architecture and design, including furnishings, decorative arts and interiors, from the earliest settlements of the Neolithic Era until the onset of Neoclassicism in the late Eighteenth Century. Special attention is given to the developments that have remained most influential within the architecture and design of today, with particular emphasis on ancient Greece and Rome, Early Christian, Byzantine and early Islam, the European Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo cultures.

Through extensive lectures and readings, special focus in this class is devoted to the art of the Greek temple, Roman civil engineering, the rise of monasticism in the early Middle Ages, early Byzantine and early Islamic religious design, pilgrimage and Romanesque church building, Gothic Europe and the age of cathedrals, Italian Renaissance architecture and the rise of Humanism, Baroque churches and papal patronage, French chateaux and absolute monarchy, and the origins of Modernism during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment.

Students will complete a combination of in-class and take-home exams along with a final research paper on a topic chosen in consultation with the instructor.

This course is a comprehensive survey of the history of furniture, including relevant information on residential architecture, the decorative arts and interior design, from the Neolithic Era until the Twenty-First Century. Special attention is given to the developments that have remained most influential within furniture design today, with particular emphasis on the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassical eras, revivalism in the Nineteenth Century, early Modernism in the Arts & Crafts and Art Nouveau movements, Art Deco, the Bauhaus and the International Style, Mid-Century Modernism, Late Modernism and Postmodernism.

Through extensive lectures and readings, special focus in this class is devoted to the relationships between furniture and societal customs throughout history, the rise of furniture?s status as a fine art during the Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassical periods, the influence of industrialization, mass production and new technologies and materials on furniture manufacturing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, furniture?s role in helping to create and define architectural space within interiors of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and the role of individual narratives in developing unique identities and meanings for furniture throughout history.

Students will complete a series of in-class exams along with a final research assignment analyzing a single object chosen from the Art Institute?s furniture collection.

This reading-intensive course surveys the development of residential architecture and interiors in Europe and the United States from the middle of the nineteenth century to the onset of Postmodernism. It concentrates on individuals and movements that helped shape the history of modern housing and interior architecture, with a focus on the pioneering work of designers beginning with the British Arts & Crafts Movement and culminating in Mid-Century Modern. Students are introduced to a wide array of primary and secondary sources, and numerous methodological approaches, in order to understand and appreciate the meaning of ?The Modern House.?

Through weekly readings this course will introduce students to the ideas of several architects, designers and movements, including the Arts & Crafts Movement?s Wm. Morris and Greene & Greene; the Art Nouveau designs of Horta, Hoffmann and Gaudi; the Prairie School work of Frank Lloyd Wright; the abstract designs of Rietveld and Tatlin; the Bauhaus work of Gropius, Breuer and Mies van der Rohe; Le Corbusier?s l?Esprit Nouveau and International Style designs; Art Deco architecture and design; Alvar Aalto?s architecture in Finland; and the mid-Century work of Eero Saarinen and Charles and Ray Eames.

Students write weekly response essays and two take-home exams, and complete a final research paper with annotated bibliography on a topic chosen in consultation with the instructor.